


Twenty-One Candles (For the One that Blinked Out)

by closemyeyesandleap



Series: Families of SHIELD [4]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: (YoYo is mentioned not present), Gen, Hope (mentioned), Memories of the Framework, Mourning, loss of a child
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-20
Updated: 2018-11-20
Packaged: 2019-08-26 17:48:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16686244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/closemyeyesandleap/pseuds/closemyeyesandleap
Summary: On what would have been Hope's 21st birthday, Mack and YoYo's eight-year-old daughter helps Mack celebrate her life.





	Twenty-One Candles (For the One that Blinked Out)

**Author's Note:**

> Please read the tags as it is a very heavy subject.
> 
> Title probably subconsciously inspired by Passenger's song "All the Little Lights" as I am obsessed with his music right now.

Mack sat in his armchair, listening to the purring of the air conditioning unit and the slight rustle of leaves brushing against the window. 

It was a bright, crisp spring day, yet Mack felt a chill inside.

His fingers caressed a worn photograph.

The house was unusually quiet for 4 o’clock on a Wednesday afternoon. Normally, excited shouts from two rambunctious four-year-olds filled the home, often accompanied by the hum of Ruben’s power tools from the garage or his eight-year-old daughter’s excited chatter. Usually he’d be waiting for Elena to burst in and regale him with tales from an exciting mission or a rant about continued prejudice against Inhumans.

Not today. The twins were over at a classmate’s house for a playdate, and his daughter, Rosy, was in her bedroom finishing up the afternoon’s homework assignments.

Mack sat alone in the quiet living room, accompanied only by the ghosts of his memories.

 _Twenty-one years old._ Today should have been Hope’s twenty-first birthday. Mack looked at the baby’s feeble form in the photograph, hooked up to far too many machines. His eyes glazed over with tears.

In another life, in another world, he would have been up all night, anxiously waiting to hear that Hope had gotten back safe from her first legal outing to a bar. 

He could almost hear the echo of her voice—her Framework voice, though with an older timber. _Dad, I’ll be fine! Trust me!_ And he heard his own response, calm, he hoped. _I worry. I’m a dad. That’s what we do._ He imagined a family gathering, with a big cake for Hope and her favorite meal—fettuccine alfredo—the little kids clustering around to celebrate with their sister.

Hope would be finishing up her last few years of college; _probably would’ve won every engineering award there is_.

He wiped his eyes before a tear could mar the aged photograph. 

He longed for a photo from the Framework, just one. He could still see her so clearly in his mind, yet still he felt if he could just see her, with his own eyes, maybe she would be more real. He ached as he remembered that the Hope he knew in that other world didn’t, in any scientific sense, _exist_. 

Yet she was his Hope, as real as the baby that had died in his arms.

She was the little girl that baby would have grown to be. He knew it like he knew the sun would rise each day.

Mack hadn’t spent Hope’s birthday alone in years. Elena always made an effort to be there for him, to sit and listen to the stories of the girl that never existed but still lived in his heart, to wipe away his tears over the baby that never had a chance to grow.

This year, however, her latest mission had grown complicated, and she couldn’t make it home in time. Daisy had called him to let him know that Elena was OK, that she and her team would just be gone for a few more days than expected. He was grateful. He knew that the call technically broke protocol, but he supposed as director it was Daisy’s prerogative to break the very protocol she had implemented.

“Daddy, I’m done.”

Mack blinked away his remaining tears and smiled over at his second-grade daughter.

“Let’s see, you double-check your math problems and everything?”

“Yep! I got all of them right, look.” Rosy handed Mack her homework.

“Attagirl. Give me five.”

Rosy grinned and high-fived her dad. Then her grin faded as she took in her dad’s face.

“Are you OK, Daddy? You look sad.”

Mack scooted over in the armchair. “C’mere, cuddlebug.” 

Rosy sat down next to him and snuggled close.

“I am sad. Today would be your big sister’s birthday, and I’m missing her.”

He and Elena had decided from the beginning to tell the kids about Hope. They didn’t want secrets to fester below the surface in their family, so all the kids knew about the baby who had been born and left too soon. At the same time, Mack made a point to not mention Hope too often. He did not want his kids, Rosy especially, to feel like they were growing up in the shadow of the baby he had lost.

Rosy gave him a squeeze, hugging as much of his broad chest as she could. “How old would she be turning?”

“Twenty-one,” Mack answered softly.

Rosy’s eyes widened. “Whoa.” 

Despite Mack’s sorrow, Rosy’s response pulled a slight grin from his face. He might as well have said that Hope would have been turning one hundred. 

“I’m sorry you’re sad, Daddy,” Rosy said. Then her mouth broke in a tentative smile. “What if we make her a cake? That way she can look down from heaven and see that we are happy it is her birthday!” 

Mack gently tugged one of Rosy’s braids that he had so carefully fixed that morning. “I think that is a wonderful, very thoughtful idea, cuddlebug.”

Rosy nodded earnestly and jumped to her feet. Mack followed her into the kitchen.

Rosy opened the pantry, examining the few boxes of cake mix that the family kept in stock. “What flavor do you think she would like?”

The memories rushed in before he could stop them, before he could even decide if he _wanted_ to stop them.

_“I wanna big chocolate cake this year, Dad! With chocolate frosting and chocolate chips on top! And some chocolate ice cream, too. Except my friend Ansley can’t eat ice cream ‘cause she’s lactose intolerant. That means she can’t have milk. Can we get her something she can eat, too?” Nine-year-old Hope asked Mack brightly in their kitchen._

_“Anything for my big girl. Double-digits, double-chocolate, sparkplug,” Mack said._

_Hope giggled. “That’s quadruple-chocolate, but thanks, Dad!”_

Mack had to clear his throat, as the memory—or apparent memory, from the Framework—washed over him. 

“I think she’d like chocolate,” he told Rosy.

“Okey-dokey,” she answered, and pulled out a box of chocolate cake mix. She grabbed the stool from the pantry and got to work, emptying the container into the mixing bowl and carefully measuring out oil and breaking two eggs into the concoction. 

“Remember, we need to preheat the oven,” Mack reminded his daughter.

“Oh, right. Where is that again?” Rosy looked over the box, and then spotted the temperature. She carefully approached the oven and turned the nob till it reached 350º.

Mack had recently started teaching Rosy how to cook, and she’d taken to it right away.

When Rosy finished stirring and poured the mixture into a pan, Mack took it from her and gently placed it in the oven. Rosy set the timer herself, smiling with a kind of soft, contented pride.

“How ‘bout I make Hope a card while we’re waiting for the cake to finish? Then we can sing her ‘Happy Birthday’?”

Mack nodded, not trusting himself to speak. 

Rosy grabbed her colored pencils from the cabinet and a large piece of baby blue construction paper and set to work.

The minutes passed slowly for Mack. He watched his daughter’s back while she drew, feeling the almost irresistible urge to draw her into his arms right then and there, to protect her from all danger and never let her go. 

Instead, he stood back as the warm, sweet aroma of chocolate filled the kitchen and the sounds of earnest pencil scratching greeted his ears. When the oven beeped, he checked the cake and then removed the pan to let it cool.

“Done!” Rosy announced a few minutes later. 

Mack approached her and gazed down at the card his daughter had made. Two trees framed each side of the paper. In between, two smiling figures stood hand in hand. One, he recognized as Rosy in her favorite pink dress, her braids flying every which way. The other figure stood much taller than Rosy. He choked with emotion as he saw her. 

Hope. 

Somehow, without ever seeing the Hope that lived—that never lived—in the Framework, Rosy had drawn a figure that resembled his eldest daughter to a heart-wrenching degree. Rosy had drawn Hope’s hair natural and free and placed an eager—even mischievous—smile on her face. Her skin was a few shades darker than Rosy’s, more like his own, and the blue jeans and t-shirt that the young woman in the drawing wore were something he could imagine a grown-up Hope choosing.

A golden halo hovered above her head.

Over the two figures, Rosy had written _Happy Birthday Sissy! I love you very much!_ and then peppered the paper in pink heart stickers.

“Do you think she would like it?” Rosy asked.

Mack gathered himself and answered. “Sweetheart, she would absolutely love it. It is so beautiful.” _Just like my girls_ , he silently added, his thumb brushing over the two figures.

Rosy leapt up and rummaged in the pantry, looking for frosting. She pulled out a jar of chocolate frosting. Mack handed her a spatula, and she began to carefully spread it on the cake. 

When she was done, she peered up at Mack. “It’s not a birthday cake without candles.”

“I think we just might have some in here,” he agreed, rummaging up on the top shelves of the pantry for the candles and lighter. 

“Make sure you get twenty-one of them! ‘Cause she’s twenty-one, and that’s important,” Rosy reminded him.

“I’m not sure, cuddlebug. That’s a lot of candles.”

“Well, that’s a lot of years!” Rosy insisted.

He nodded and counted them out. 

Rosy stood on her stool and gently inserted each and every candle into the cake, counting aloud as she did so. “…19, 20, 21!” she announced.

Mack activated the lighter and handed it to his daughter, keeping his hand firmly closed over hers. He guided her small hand over the cake, and they lit all of the candles.

Suddenly, Rosy looked worried. “Who's going to blow out the candles, though, Daddy?”

Mack squeezed her shoulders. “Well, I think she would be happy if her little sister did it.”

Rosy didn’t look convinced. “I can’t blow out _all_ of these candles at one time. And if I don’t do it in one breath, Hope won’t get any wishes.”

“That’s OK, cuddlebug. She’s in heaven with God. She has everything she could ever want.” 

Rosy nodded. “I guess. Let’s sing her happy birthday, ‘kay, Daddy?”

“You betcha.”

They began to sing, Mack holding tightly onto his daughter to keep himself from shaking. Her little voice spread throughout the house, high and light, dancing above his deeper one.

When they were done, Rosy took as big a breath as she could and blew out the candles. It took her three tries to extinguish them all. She smiled in satisfaction and gave her dad a squeeze. “Do you think she could hear us all the way up in heaven?”

Mack smiled. “I know she could, sweetheart. And you know what? I think the angels started singing too.”

Rosy gave him another hug and started to walk away. 

“Don’t you want a piece?” Mack called after his daughter.

Rosy turned and frowned, playing with her fingers. “Well, I don’t think we should eat the cake.”

“Oh? Why not?”

“Hope isn’t here. It’s mean to eat someone’s birthday cake without them there.”

“Oh, cuddlebug,” Mack murmured, approaching Rosy and pulling his daughter to his chest. “That’s very thoughtful. But I think in this instance, it’s OK.”

Rosy blinked up at Mack as he hugged her. 

“Really? Daddy, are you OK? You’re crying.”

Mack didn’t try to wipe his tears away. “I’m OK, sweetheart. I’m crying because I am happy and sad at the same time. Do you feel that way sometimes?”

Rosy nodded. “I think I feel that way now. I’m happy because it’s sissy’s birthday, and I’m sad because she’s not here.”

“That’s right, sweetheart. But you know what? I think Hope wouldn’t mind if we eat the cake. You see, she’s right here.” Mack laid his hand gently over Rosy’s heart. “And here.” He moved his hand to his own chest.

“In our hearts?”

“That’s right.” They walked back to the cake, and he cut two pieces. Then he hesitated, and cut a third, and set it aside.

“Happy birthday, sparkplug,” he whispered, before turning back to Rosy.

**Author's Note:**

> I would love to hear your thoughts :)


End file.
